Sacha Baron Cohen has never been one to shy away from pushing people’s buttons with his outrageous and politically incorrect humor. Whether it’s as Ali G, Borat or Brüno, he’s just got no shame. When I first saw BORAT I couldn’t believe the ignorant and inappropriate things that were coming out his mouth when he interviewed people. But even worse were the racist and offensive things people were saying back to him. I couldn’t believe that people could be so insensitive, even though they’re being provoked, and that’s the brilliance behind Cohen’s comedy. He’s not just out to piss people off but to reveal the hidden prejudices and ignorance inside of them. It’s an interesting approach, although really aggressive one, but smart nonetheless.
His follow up, BRÜNO, was in no way as funny or smart as BORAT or even ALI G INDAHOUSE. But with THE DICTATOR Cohen relies less on the juvenile gross out humor he used so much in BRÜNO (it’s not entirely gone though) and returns to creating an entertaining and clever satire.
In his most scripted film since ALI G INDAHOUSE, Cohen portrays Admiral General Aladeen, the insecure, dumb and ruthless ruler of the fictional North Africa nation of Wadiya. Aladeen is quick to execute anyone who displeases him, hires celebrities for one-night stands and has replaced so many of his country’s words with his own name that the people are no longer sure how to interpret the meaning of the word Aladeen.
Aladeen longs to create a nuclear weapon to prove he’s a force to be reckoned with but when the United Nations learns of his nuclear activities they threaten to attack his country unless he speaks before them and state he does not have any weapons of mass destruction. Aladeen and advisor/uncle Tamir (Ben Kingsley) travel to New York to speak to the UN but upon his arrival Aladeen is kidnapped and Tamir replaces him with an even dumber peasant double. Tamir plans to use the double to sign a document turning Wadiya into a democracy and in turn make a pretty penny selling off Wadiya’s oil reserves.
However Aladeen escapes his kidnappers but without his signature beard or any form of identification and finds it hard for anyone to take him seriously. Not long after his escape he meets Zoe (Anna Faris), a local feminist business owner, who provides him with a job and clothes thinking he’s an oppressed Wadiyan, and Nadal (Jason Mantzoukas), one of Aladeen’s former employees. Nadal supports Aladeen’s plan and the two work together to get Aladeen into the UN summit and stop Tamir’s plan.
With THE DICTATOR being a very structured film unlike his past films, I found it to be a lot more enjoyable. Sure going around interviewing people and getting into awkward situations is funny at first but the style got tired really quickly. Having a more organized film means a story is actually told rather than various bits strung together by a thin plot.
Much like ALI G INDAHOUSE, THE DICTATOR starts out as political comedy, and a very funny one at that, but it evolves into something of a romantic comedy with the introduction of Zoe. Even though Aladeen is an all-powerful dictator, the one thing he really wants is love and not the kind of love he buys. He just wants someone to cuddle with and hold him close and Zoe provides him with that intimacy. Her presence causes him to question his authoritarian ways and consider the possibility of democracy. It’s a sweet little subplot that gives Cohen the chance to show off his tender side and be somewhat romantic or as romantic as you can be while calling the one you love a little boy and scoffing at her ideas of gender equality and cultural sensitivity.
Even though it’s nice to see this other side of Cohen’s character, romance isn’t exactly Cohen’s forte and this subplot isn’t really developed and becomes rushed towards the end of the film. But offensive, insensitive comedy is where he excels and he really kicks it up a notch in THE DICTATOR. The jokes range from today’s world politics to xenophobia to abortion to anti-Semitism (although he is a practicing Jew) to torture tactics, with a sprinkling of full frontal nudity for good measure, and hardly a minute goes by where a joke isn’t made. THE DICTATOR had me laughing throughout the entire movie and I found that I was either laughing out loud or covering my mouth trying to hide the fact that I was laughing at something so morally wrong. Two of the more memorable scenes involved him masturbating for the first time and the absolutely absurd visions of ecstasy he has during it and the other had a pregnant woman about to give birth and a cell phone that you just have to see to believe.
Even though Cohen is plenty funny on his own he has a great supporting cast along for the ride. Kingsley is great as the villain as he deals with the ineptitude of both Aladeen and Aladeen’s double. John C. Reilly shows up as Aladeen’s racist kidnapper with the hilarious Bobby Lee as the Chinese delegate who insists he’s not gay yet constantly brags about the male celebrities he’s gotten to suck his dick and Megan Fox has a great cameo poking fun at herself.
Of the supporting cast, Jason Mantzoukas as Nadal, a nuclear scientist who had previously worked for Aladeen in Wadiya, was by far my favorite. I’m a big fan of him on THE LEAGUE and on the podcast "How Did This Get Made?" and he was the perfect complement to Cohen. The two work together to help Aladeen disrupt the summit and in their plotting and scheming they have the most childish and ridiculous arguments as Nadal constantly corrects Aladeen on all his misinformed beliefs, such as the need for missiles to have a pointy tip as opposed to a round one, and their total inability to blend in with American society. The helicopter scene from the trailers is even better than they make it out to be and all of their other scenes together are hysterical.
THE DICTATOR is a short (a scant 83 minutes) and straight to the point comedy filled with plenty of black humor that borders on political satire. When it comes down to it, THE DICTATOR is easily better than BRÜNO, made me cringe less than BORAT and definitely succeeds in bringing enough laughs to make the film worth it.
